Introduction

Description

An XMI file, that reflects the object structure of the code parsed (you can then import it into a CASE tool, such as Rational Rose)

A full HTML API documentation. Two themes are available (an oldie, similar to Javadoc, and a modern looking one)

PHP code skeletons (useful if you have an existing XMI file, and want to generate the files, folders and class declarations all at once)

From its version 1.5, PHP_UML can also parse procedural code. The export format called "htmlnew" benefits from this new capability, and turns
PHP_UML into a kind of competitor of PhpDocumentor (although it does not offer all of its features).
See here an example of an API documentation as generated by PHP_UML.

Features

PHP_UML is able to parse the following PHP elements: namespaces, classes, interfaces, properties, and functions. It can also retrieve information from the inline comments, via the annotations: @package, @var, @param

@param and @var learn PHP_UML about the expected types of a parameter or a property.

@package learns PHP_UML about the namespace of an element (even if, from PHP 5.3, it is recommended to use the PHP namespacing instructions instead)

So the more documented your PHP code is, the more precise your XMI file, or your API documentation, will be.

Usage

You can use PHP_UML either from command line (the simplest solution), or by writing a piece of code that relies on PHP_UML.

Parsing a single file test.php, and generating its XMI file:

<?phprequire_once 'PHP/UML.php';

$uml = new PHP_UML(); $uml->setInput('tests'); // this defines which files/folders to parse (here, the folder "tests")$uml->parse('myApp'); // this starts the parser, and gives the name "myApp" to the generated metamodel$uml->export('xmi', 'myApp.xmi'); // this serializes the metamodel in XMI code, and saves it to a file "myApp.xmi"?>

About XMI

At the current time, the UML/XMI standards exist in two distinct families of versions, 1.x and 2.x. PHP_UML can generate XMI in version 1.4, as well as in version 2.1.
Be warned, though, that some UML tools might not interpret accurately the data contained in your XMI file. For example, the link between a UML artifact (a source file) and the classes defined inside that artifact is only available from version 2 of UML.

PHP_UML can also convert existing UML/XMI data from version 1.4 to version 2. An inline converter (using PHP_UML behind the scene) is available here.

User Notes:

Thanks for your message.
I know you sent it a while ago, but I'm just reading it, sorry.

It is true that some of the things I wrote about XMI and UML are ambiguous, and I have cleared a little bit the documentation about PHP_UML accordingly (it should be published soon).
Thanks for your remarks.

I quite agree with you that PHP lacks type hinting for class properties (as well as for function returns). Since it is already possible to specify a type for the function parameters in PHP, it would be very coherent to allow it for the class properties and constants too.

BTW, you have suggested to make PHP_UML aware of annotations, in order to compensate this lack, but it's already a feature of PHP_UML (PHP_UML can read the properties types through the @var annotation)

Thanks for your work on this, I am very interested in this project. I formerly worked for a major UML tool vendor, and use PHP and Drupal CMS for some web work, however the lack of graphical engineering and UML support in PHP is a big issue for me, especially because I am very used to UML-driven Java and XML Schema engineering.

Firstly however some clarifications. You wrote:

"Your UML/XMI code might be interpreted differently by the modeling tool you are going to use along with PHP_UML. This is particularly true for the version 2 of UML/XMI. For instance, the Eclipse plug-ins (EMF, Papyrus) only accept a particular flavour of XMI, called ecore, which is only partly compatible with the one you will get with PHP_UML."

You seem to be equating XMI with UML (and eCore in EMF with XMI), which is getting the cart before the horse. XMI is able to represent various metam metamodels, as described well here:

"The MOF standard selects a subset of UML that's appropriate for modeling metadata. This subset is called the MOF Core."

"the technology-neutral nature of the MOF Core made it relatively easy to produce a mapping from the MOF Core's elements to XML so that, given a metamodel, a Document Type Definition (DTD) could be generated. This DTD can be used to stream models that conform to the metamodel.
..
The generated DTD defines XML elements for each element of the metamodel."

"Several specific XMI DTDs have been standardized by the OMG. Each was produced by feeding an MOF-compliant metamodel into an XMI DTD generator. .. The UML DTD is the most widely used XMI DTD."

" this project will provide the glue around valuable UML and SysML diagram editors (GMF-based or not) and other MDE tools. It will also offer support for UML and SysML profiling mechanisms."

Ok, so to the PHP_UML tool. I gave it a spin on a very simple PHP web application (for bulk migration and admin of subscription data for the Drupal Simplenews module), and then imported it into MagicDraw UML. The results is available here:

http://www.webel.com.au/php/uml

Because PHP does not support typed Properties it is very difficult to manage the Relationships between Classes (even with your handy 'mixed' DataType). The process shown requires so much manual intervention (I've used Dependencies and Usages to indicate where Associations could be) that the benefits of obtaining the UML representation are greatly undermined.

I find it unfortunate that (according to these minutes by these minutes by Derick Rethans from a PHP Developer meeting from Nov 2005) it was apparently decided that type-hinting would not be introduced for properties in future version of PHP:

"5.8 Type-hinted properties and return values
Issue: PHP only supports type hinted arguments and not for return values or properties.

Discussion:

We quickly agreed that we don't need type-hinted properties, as it would cause problems when they are assigned to other variables and it's just generally not-PHP style."